Failing to find any plausible contrast, we realize that the modifier 'directly' doesn't do any work here: it is meaningless. — SophistiCat

This sounds right to me, and reduces contrast theory to the principle of a Venn diagram. a word has meaning by making a distinction between what it refers to and everything else, with the distinction drawn as a line between them.

We can know what a unicorn is - a magical horse like creature with a single horn on its head - even though we know there are no unicorns. but when we want t make useful functional distinctions, between forms of seeing and such, there has to be something on each side of the line for the classification to function. To say all seeing is direct, or all seeing is indirect does not draw a line in the world of seeing at all. The distinction does not function in the world of seeing unless it divides seeing into contrasting segments:- I see directly what is in front of me, and indirectly via the rear view mirror or via a camera or other apparatus —. and then we can argue whether spectacles, rose tinted or not, are to count as an apparatus or not.

@cherryorchard

I believe most of this is a misunderstanding of the method of OLP, and also maybe assuming it has certain premises it needs and/or conclusions it wants.

But: there is one kind of shift of meaning which is both disastrous and characteristically philosophical, and that is to make the criteria for what falls under a concept either so severe, or so loose, that either nothing at all can, or everything must, fall under it.

If anything the above would be a fallacy that Wittgenstein is trying to point out. He refers to philosophy’s desire for “crystalline purity” which shows in its manufacturing and imposing rigid criteria for knowledge, truth, etc.—to be logical and certain—which constrains their ability to capture the world at all (not that they need an antithesis). Also, one of Austin’s moves—in order to show that philosophy gets too wrapped up in wanting something to be a particular way—is to point out that there are not the dichotomies that philosophy imagines, such as when it asks if an act is voluntarily or not, which it thinks creates a question of intention, when an opposite of voluntarily is not necessarily determined or unconscious, but forced.

@Richard B sets out further language of Gellner’s and the concern that OLP takes regular language as superior and not claiming any impact (“normativity”).

thought is not bound and enslaved by any of the language games it employs, but on the contrary that a most important kind of thinking consists of reassessing out terms, reassessing the norms built into them and reassessing the contrast associated with them.

This assumes that OLP wants philosophical thought to be done in regular language, which overlooks Wittgenstein’s extensive use of his own terms: “use”, “sense”, “grammar”, “criteria”, “ordinary”, and his pointing out how dichotomy and analogy (or forms of expression) in everyday language create expectations that allow our desire for certainty to even get a handhold at all. The confusion I think is that Wittgenstein is not using or exalting ordinary language (the moniker is disastrous for understanding the method), but looking at the expressions we say in certain situations because they reveal our ordinary criteria of judgment, which can be contrasted with manufactured “philosophical criteria”, like Plato’s for knowledge. This does not provide a better answer, but reveals why we want to abandon the world (because it fails us, is not predictive, not stable, etc).

What is conspicuous about Linguistic Philosophy is its abdication of any kind of normative role, both in its practice and in its programmatic announcements. — Richard B

When Wittgenstein claims that philosophy should only describe and not explain (#109), he is only contrasting it to science’s hypothesizing, or imagining something hidden #126. He is not trying to claim that philosophy can’t or shouldn’t say anything or argue for anything. The whole of PI is one claim after another about how our ordinary criteria work, for all of us, and he is absolutely trying to make (and “explain”) multiple points and in a way in which we might convince ourselves, changing how we act. What constrains philosophy is not the ordinary, but what always has: what turns out to be useless, what is made ridiculous, illogical, etc.

Austin spends quite a lot of time in 'Sense and Sensibilia' explaining that there is no point in claiming that we only ever see things indirectly, just precisely because, if that is the case, we no longer have any idea what seeing directly would even mean — cherryorchard

We read through Sense and Sensibilia here, and I believe what Austin is doing is showing how “indirectly” actually works (seeing someone in a mirror, speaking by phone, etc), to show that the opposite “directly” does not have the same power philosophy wants it to—objectivity, certainty—against which “indirectly” is then only imagined as illusion, mitigated, or something we overcome or see through, casting us out from the world. The other point is, as you say, that we don’t mention that we see “directly” unless there is a question of whether we are or could be doing so indirectly. “I saw the moon directly, not through this telescope.”

I think Gellner is taking the point Austin is making in this case, and trying to make it a position of OLP, and, even more, a position to all language, which is an ad naseum argument. Austin is merely being logical. The same is the case when Wittgenstein points out that we don’t “know” we (or you) are in pain (as a claim to knowledge), we just “are” in pain, we have it. The claim is that pain is expressed to request a response to the pain (to my having it—to me), for it to be accepted or rejected. “I’m in pain.” “I know.” “Then why aren’t you doing anything?”

Austin's argument is about what he sees as the misuse of particular words in philosophy. — cherryorchard

This is a common minimization of Austin, though understandable. He is looking at what we say in order to learn about what we do (it is a means, not “about” it). He is not defending correct usage; he is leveraging it because what is normative about words, is our lives, which are captured in them. Unfortunately, he doesn’t talk much about why someone would claim indirect realism, nor why it is important to tear it apart (and “realism”).

The larger question then, is why would anyone claim they can only see, perceive, or experience the world indirectly? Cavell points out the inference that we want to remain special in the face of our perhaps not being so, that we want to necessarily be a self (that mitigates the world). Also, as with Descartes, we want to account for being wrong by internalizing it so we can control it (and still possibly be infallible, certain) because the fear of always possibly being wrong is worse (that we may never come to moral agreement).

Whoops

@Banno @Ludwig V - Austin readers

We all understand and accept that different creatures with visual organs perceive the world differently. Only certain wavelengths of light are perceptible to human eyes, etc. So of course there is no 'one' objectively correct way of seeing the world. — cherryorchard

The mitigation of “perception” of indirect-realism preserves the possibility of certainty, however limited. As Kant did, it kills off the world (the thing-in-itself) in order to keep our manufactured standards for “Knowledge”. The modern story is that science can know the brain (predictably, consistently), and we can rest unmistaken on that, rather than having the constant shadow of skepticism and doubt lurking on everything else we decide to do and say. We want to only accept fore-knowledge, universality, and the “crystalline purity” of (math-like) “Logic” so, if we can’t have that (certain knowledge), we take the world as unknowable at all. Wittgenstein is showing that we have numerous ways of understanding the world other than objective certainty. Austin is just burning down the (manufactured) house.

Also, what are matters of interest and focus and differentiation, are turned into the constant, unique, individualization of our brain, and so my brain makes me constantly different from yours. The picture is: I “perceive” the world differently (always) from how you perceive it, and we use language to try to overcome our ever-present division, fraught with skeptical failure from the beginning. What internalizing our separateness (our possible difference) does is save “me” (always, rather than by non-conformity). And, yes, we are separate, but by default we are intelligible, and, when that sometimes fails, the responsibility falls on us (does not destroy our ability to connect with the world).

Unfortunately, Austin doesn’t talk much about why someone would claim indirect realism, nor why it is important to tear it apart (and “realism”) — Antony Nickles

Other than myself, you may be the only person I’ve encountered on this site over the past 6 years who is not a realist. It gets lonely here when you’re not contributing.

Phhtt.

@Banno @Ludwig V @Joshs

'Words function through contrast with an antithesis' seems like a perfectly valid and meaningful theory of how words function. — cherryorchard

This might be the place to unravel a common mischaracterization of Austin and Wittgenstein. What they are doing is using the method of looking at the expressions and situations surrounding “indirect” and making claims about the criteria that make it work (because our interest in it and the ways we make judgments about it are reflected in our expressions). They imagine a context for philosophy’s (contrasting metaphysical) criteria as well. These are not claimed as “theories” as Gellner takes it, they are proposed as agreed upon (PI #128), as premises. If we do not agree with (see) “I believe” as a hypothesis (PI, p. 190), there is no force to the argument (though we can specify more context, alternate examples), but then we won’t follow Wittgenstein in contrasting its metaphysical use in relation to knowledge.

Thus, pointing out how “indirect” works (in agreed-upon ways) is an example to contrast with how philosophy is trying to remove it from any context and impose criteria and judgments. Again, it is a logical argument from premises that we must all take as how the world works. It is not an argument for how the world works (that is the starting point), nor how all language must work.

Can anyone think of any word that is meaningful without a contrast? I haven't seen an example yet. — cherryorchard

Maybe it’s important to separate a logical contrast, as in an opposite, from simply making a distinction at all, like a bush from a tree (and that these criteria blur). As I said above, Austin takes the example of the philosophical framing of “voluntary or not?” and shows that it is manufactured as the opposite of voluntary is not lacking intention, but compelled (Shanghai-highed).

So meaning is based on the distinctions it has been important for humanity to make in each instance, some of which are contrasts (opposites). Some contrasts are important to us (how indirect is opposed to direct), but some philosophical contrasts are created, e.g., belief always contrasted with (defined by) knowledge, or doubt as always opposed to certainty (even in instances where we want certainty even where doubt is not a consideration).

@Banno @Ludwig V

The word 'shoe', for instance, obviously gets its meaning from the fact that it refers only to things that are shoes, and not to things that aren't. — cherryorchard

The need to take a static snapshot and exclude other things is why we can picture language as violence. That our expressing something, in response to a situation, to someone, making distinctions, etc., is to cut off other possible things to express (not precluding ongoing clarification, correcting mistakes, etc). And the criteria for identification, categorization, creative application can be fuzzy and general without being flawed.

One thing Gellner is claiming OLP does not allow is that our forms of expression change, but it is because they contain the rationale of the world, the form and workings of each being different, say, as an apology is different from justice, that they have the possibility to be extended, to die off, become superficial, or are given new life. Wittgenstein specifically addresses and allows for this in discussing “continuing a series”. The claim to what criteria there are for a practice does not preclude that practice from changing, or the criteria we use to judge it. What they take philosophy to do is draw out those ordinary criteria (explicitly), which actually allows for the discussion of their applicability, our failure to apply them, the need for change, etc.

to make the criteria for what falls under a concept either so severe, or so loose, that either nothing at all can, or everything must, fall under it. The term then loses any contrast… [ Philosophers ] do it, from the essentially philosophical desire to say something wholly all-embracing, not realizing that this ambition is incompatible with saying anything at all.

If I would claim that there are terms or concepts that have no antithesis, it would be the manufactured criteria that Descartes, Plato, and Kant create and project. Plato can come to no conclusion in the Meno about virtue through knowledge, Descartes can’t prop up anything that avoids doubt, and Kant can only come up with self-referential axioms that meet the desire to be imperative. I believe Gellner is recording this as OLP’s claim that this move (requiring certainty) “loses any contrast” or is not “saying anything at all” despite recognizing they come from philosophy’s desire to have something “wholly all-embracing”, which is what Wittgenstein is trying to pinpoint why we do that and unravel it in the PI, termed “purity”.

Perhaps this puts us in the position where we can now say Gellner misconstrues Austin and Wittgenstein, thinking they are saying we MUST have an antithesis, but what they are actually doing is redirecting our attention from the all-consuming desire for certainty (“direct” perception) to examples that contrast against that metaphysical criteria with ordinary ways we judge a situation, in this case, only coincidentally, pointing to the opposite, where we say “indirect”.

I pretty much agree. The critique in Gellner misfires.